Nevertheless, every caster in the game practices magic, and virtually everyone is festooned with amulets. Magic is common place, even if trifling unless the Hand of Metzen makes the casters gods-in-a-pocket.

It's important to remember that our characters, plentiful as they seem due to subscriptions, are NOT the norm. We are heroes -- privileged and wealthy -- by virtues of game mechanics alone. In all the 'epic' cutscenes for the defeat of world menaces, it's just a handful of heroes who finally win the day.

I will also point out that your rebuttal does not in any way contradict my statement:

LEGION wrote:I think that grandmaster level magic is as rare as the top-tier engineering.

Chances are good that Joe-Blow-The-Farmer is not going to be out doing more than a rain-dance that may or may not have any effect whatsoever.

LEGION wrote:Chances are good that Joe-Blow-The-Farmer is not going to be out doing more than a rain-dance that may or may not have any effect whatsoever.

Actually, Joe Blow deals with magic on a daily basis.

Quest in Elwynn Forest to get the two kids togther. Her granny sends you to the candlemaker in Lion's Pride Inn, who sends you off to get the materials for an invisibility potion. This isn't presented as a big deal.

You talk to a ghost in Westfall. You get hair from a ghost in Duskwood for a charm this old hermit wants to make -- and the only one who bats an eye at the hermit's requests is the barkeep who thinks getting zombie juice is way too dangerous.

The blood elves have integrated magic into their daily lives on a macro and micro level, from controlling the weather (which they can no longer do, afaict, unless the return of the Sunwell permits it to be picked upa again) to having animated brooms do the sweeping.

LEGION wrote:Chances are good that Joe-Blow-The-Farmer is not going to be out doing more than a rain-dance that may or may not have any effect whatsoever.

Actually, Joe Blow deals with magic on a daily basis.

Quest in Elwynn Forest to get the two kids togther. Her granny sends you to the candlemaker in Lion's Pride Inn, who sends you off to get the materials for an invisibility potion. This isn't presented as a big deal.

You talk to a ghost in Westfall. You get hair from a ghost in Duskwood for a charm this old hermit wants to make -- and the only one who bats an eye at the hermit's requests is the barkeep who thinks getting zombie juice is way too dangerous.

The blood elves have integrated magic into their daily lives on a macro and micro level, from controlling the weather (which they can no longer do, afaict, unless the return of the Sunwell permits it to be picked upa again) to having animated brooms do the sweeping.

Okay, then you can say the EXACT same thing about tech and engineering. We're always getting quests to bring components for this or that, which is in no way exceptional to the quest givers or to the people from whom you must obtain pieces-parts. Mechanical harvesters are all over Westfall, so there is no practical reason whatsoever to use (or be forced into using) low-tech or non-magical anything.

Conclusion: absolutely none of it is special, anywhere, and trying to reason out any kind of sense is pointless.

Actually, William Pestle is the apothecary. It's worth pointing out that neither of the kids thinks of an invisibility potion, one simply asks you to ask the other's grandmother who suggests asking the apothecary for an invisibility potion. True, this isn't presented as a huge deal, bit it's also something that requires jumping through some hoops and isn't widely known. It's also worth pointing out that Goldshire is fairly large, lore-wise, so that only one person in the whole place is able to make a relatively simple potion could be considered quite telling.

The ghost in westfall is actually introduced by a character who swears it's real, despite protestations from all those he tells that it's just the imagining of drunk sailors.

That no one has flagged zombie juice as a necessary component to building a giant killer monster, despite that having happened before in Darkshire is also telling as to the average level of magical comprehension by WoW denizens. The person who gives it to you is either unaware of this use or assumes you are, either way, this implies (to me) that knowledge of zombie juice's use in creating nightmarish monsters is rare.

Blood elves are to magic as gnomes are to tech; their cities are designed to reflect this. That magic being so common is a thing that is supposed to give their race a distinctive flavor could also be argued as evidence that, among most races, it is not.

Jalsihr wrote:Blood elves are to magic as gnomes are to tech; their cities are designed to reflect this. That magic being so common is a thing that is supposed to give their race a distinctive flavor could also be argued as evidence that, among most races, it is not.

Stop trying to cloud the issue with fact and derivative reasoning. Can't you see we're trying to kill a discussion here?! ;P

Considering Draenei use Crystal systems and Crystal this and Crystal that, I am not surprised. IRL we've been researching crystal-based technologies simply for the fact there is so much potential for data storage and development, though it's been a few years since I've read/heard/talked about it, so feel free to Google.

Also, I mean, The Ancients in the Stargate universe totally uses crystal-based technologies, so it has to be the next leap, right?